GTA VI: A Complete Guide to the Leonida Map and Gameplay Mechanics

00:00Two weeks from now, you'll wake up in a small house in the Leonida Keys, open your map, and see… mostly nothing. That's not a bug. In GTA VI, the map only fills in where you've actually been, and this one is around twice the size of GTA V's. So, before you get dropped in there, let me give you the tour. Where the Alligators live. Which part of the state a biker gang basically owns. How your map can tell you how much cash a gang is sitting on. Why I wouldn't walk Northern Woods without a rifle. And why the cops in this game remember what shirt you had on. I've been through everything Rockstar has put out. Every developer interview I could find, and a fan map with over 3000 pinned locations.

00:40Stick around to the end too, that's where my Day 1 checklist is. Quick heads up before we start, when something comes straight from Rockstar, I'll just say it. When it's from the fan map, or it's me just guessing, you'll hear me saying so. Okay, first let's look at the shape of this place. Leonida is Rockstar's version of Florida, and it splits into six regions. Over on the Atlantic side, you've got Vice City, which is Miami. Hanging off the bottom is a string of islands, the Leonida Keys. Then there's Grass Rivers, a huge swamp that's very clearly the Everglades. Port Gellhorn sits up on the Gulf Coast, Ambrosia is right in the middle, and Mt. Calaga National Park runs along the northern

01:17border. As for size, Aaron Garbott from Rockstar North told Game Informer it's around twice GTA and the biggest map they've ever built by some degree. He didn't give an actual number though. Nobody at Rockstar has. So I opened the fan map, State of Leonida, and measured it myself. From Jason's house in the Keys to downtown Vice City, it's roughly 6 kilometers as the crow flies. From the bottom of the Keys to Mount Calaga, about 13. For comparison, the Los Santos airport to Palado Bay is around 9 and a half. Honestly, it's going to feel even bigger than those numbers. Rob Nelson, who runs development at Rockstar North, says the roads are narrower now, closer to real width, and there's more

01:58traffic on them. On top of that, Edge reports that a day in Leonida lasts noticeably longer than a day in Los Santos. The detail that really changes how you'll play came from Nelson's Famitsu interview. Places you haven't explored only appear on your map once you've been there. And Rupert Humphries, who leads narrative at Rockstar, told Game Informer the story simply doesn't have time to take you everywhere. So, if all you do is missions, big chunks of the map stay empty. Let's fill it in then, starting where the game does. Rockstar sells the keys as the gateway to paradise. Casual dress code, loaded bars, and, in their words, some of the most beautiful and dangerous waters in America. That

02:37last bit isn't just marketing, by the way. This is where your story starts. Nelson confirmed that your first home is Jason's place down here, the little house from the trailers. It isn't really his, by the way. It belongs to Brian Hader, a drug runner from the Golden Age of Smuggling, who still moves product through his boatyard with his third wife, Lori. Jason gets to live there rent -free, as long as he helps out with the odd local shakedown. As deals in Leonida go, not a bad one. On the fan map, this island is Key Lento, and Brian's Boat Works and Marina sits exactly where a real marina in Key Largo is. A little further along is the Rusty Anchor, the bar from the official screenshots. And

03:14somewhere around here lives Cal, Jason's buddy, who likes to spend his evenings listening in on Coast Guard radio with a beer in his hand. Now about those dangerous waters. One of the edge screenshots shows a hammerhead cruising over the reef, and the launch trailer has a Keys sign with sharks painted on it. Still, there's a reason to jump in. The New York Times preview says you can dive for treasure, and other previews mention shipwrecks. So there's money down there. There's also a hammerhead. Get used to iguanas, too. Sunbathing on rocks and wandering across the road. That's Rockstar doing its homework. told Game Informer they added Florida's invasive species, from green iguanas and cane

03:51toads to feral cats and even rhesus macaques. Keep the monkeys in mind. They'll come up again. Getting off the keys means one long road hopping from island to island, with water on both sides. And then there's the city. I love Rockstar's line about it. We're a long way from the 80s, but Vice City is still the sun and fun capital of America. How big is it? Nelson reportedly told Flow Games that Vice City alone is twice the size of Los Santos. I've only seen that in one place, so I wouldn't get it tattooed just yet. The official description name drops four places, so let's start there. Ocean Beach is the postcard. Pastel, Art Deco hotels, and bright white sand. That's South Beach, with Shore

04:32Drive standing in for Ocean Drive, and fans have matched the Ocean View Hotel to the real Clevelander. Little Cuba is Little Havana, right down to the bustling Panaderías, the Cuban bakeries. The Tishawaka Flea Market, with its bootleg brands, is modeled on the one in Opa Loca. And the VC port, the cruise ship capital of the world, is Port Miami. The trailers fill in the rest. Downtown has the Megamundo Towers Jason and Lucia pull up to in the extended look, and Sahara Arena, Rockstar's Casaya Center, with the Ferris Wheel and the Marina next door. Stockyard, think Wynwood, is where the car meet from Trailer One goes down. The fan map puts Electric Fang Tattoo there as well. The parlor, with

05:12over 50 designs from the Brooklyn Art Collective, fail. Crosstown is where the Trailer One street takeover happens, and it's also home to the Jack of Hearts, Booby Ike's strip club. Head to Southside and you're on PTT Youngin's turf, a crew whose compound you get to raid in the Ultimate Edition. Add Ifluvia, the rooftop bar on Ocean Beach, the airport with its giant Vice City letters, and Catalan Quay, Rockstar's Quay Biscayne, tennis stadium and all. This is where most of the shops, clubs, gyms and things worth robbing are. Showing the game to IGN, Nelson robbed a headphone store and said you can rob pretty much anything. The catch is that the city's packed with people, and in GTA 6, every

05:52one of them is potential witness. I'll get to why that matters. Oh, and if you want everything there is to do in these places, I've got a whole video on all 48 activities. It's up in the corner. Leave the city behind, and pretty soon, the concrete just stops. Welcome to Grass Rivers. Rockstar calls it the Untamable Jewel of Leonidas Crown, and then writes this. The Gators be the most famous attraction, but there are far deadlier predators and weirder discoveries among the mangroves. The Gators are definitely there. Game Informer ran a sunrise shot of the wetlands with an alligator, a roseate spoonbill, a deer, and a few waiting birds all crammed into one frame. And Edge's swamp shot has an

06:32airboat, a shirtless guy with a drink, his buddy holding a rifle, and a gator right beside them. I'll let you guess what they're doing out there. Red Bull's breakdown of the extended look says you can hunt alligators, but that's the only place I've seen it, so I'm waiting for the game on that one. As for those far deadlier predators, Rockstar isn't saying. My money's on Burmese pythons, since they're the real Everglades worst nightmare. But that's just me guessing. If you take one thing from this region, stay out of the water and get an airboat. It skims over shallow water and grass where a normal boat gets stuck, which is why there's one in almost every swamp shot Rockstar has shown. The

07:09fan map also puts the Ultimate Edition's Paradise Garage out here, in Watson Bay on the gulf side. Follow the Gulf Coast north and you'll reach Port Gellhorn. And this might be my favorite bit of riding on Rockstar's whole site. They call it Leonida's Forgotten Coast. Cheap motels, shut down attractions, empty strip malls, a former vacation spot that now runs on malt liquor, painkillers, and truck stop energy drinks. their advice for visitors? Jump on a dirt bike and hold onto your wallet. Funny thing is, the Forgotten Coast is real. It's a stretch of Florida's Gulf Coast right next to Panama City, and the fan map matches Port Gellhorn's Waffle Place, Bingo Hall and Strip Club to real spots

07:50there. That Waffle Place is Hank's Waffles, the diner that gets held up in the Extended Look. And just outside town is the Gellhorn International Raceway, the track from the Extended Looks racing footage which fans think is based on Sebring. The official screenshots don't sell it as a holiday spot either. Deals through car windows, what looks like a drug den, and the motel where Jason gets into a fight in Trailer 2. You might even end up living somewhere like that. Nelson says your hideouts change from chapter to chapter, and the fan map already tags the Starlet Motel as a safe house. And hold on to your wallet? Take it literally, you really can lose the cash in your pocket in this game.

08:27More on that in a minute. Right in the middle of the state is Ambrosia, where, according to Rockstar, American industry and old school values still reign supreme. And then they just come out and say it. The Allied Crystal Sugar refinery provides the jobs, while the local biker gang provides almost everything else. So if you've been wondering where the bikers are, there's your answer. The real town behind it is Cluiston, which genuinely calls itself America's Sweetest Town, because of its sugar mill, and the fan map lines Allied Crystal up with that exact mill. Out in the countryside around it, you'll find some of the extended look's best stuff, the Thrillbilly Mud Club, which is exactly what

09:05it sounds like, and a crop duster over Tucker's Citrus Farms. Car people, this one's for you. Previews say a guy named Wyman will put together classic cars if you bring him the parts, and the fan map places Wyman's World Auto Salvage right here in Ambrosia. Remember Ambrosia for later, too. A region run by a gang is very likely a region with gang stashes, and in this game, your map can show you what's inside them. Head all the way north and the state finally opens up. Mt. Kalaga National Park is room to breathe, with prime hunting, fishing, and off -road trails. And in the backwoods around it, according to Rockstar, live hillbilly mystics and paranoid radicals, far from the prying eyes of

09:44the government. So the woods aren't empty, they're full of people who'd rather you weren't there. Now take a look at this official screenshot. A few deer at a creek, a buck lying in the grass, all very peaceful. Then you notice what's creeping in at the front of the frame. That's a panther. Fun fact, the Florida panther is Florida's official state animal. Less fun fact, up here you're not always the one doing the hunting. Game Informer's screenshots also show a hunter on an ATV by a forest stream, Rockstar says you'll be able to track down animals rated rare, discoverable, or legendary. Nelson added that you can study animals as a collection, like in Red Dead Redemption 2. Which brings us

10:22back to the monkeys. Florida's real wild rhesus macaques live around Silver Springs near Ocala, and Rockstar's environment team reportedly researched Ocala. So if I were looking for monkeys in Leonida, I'd start up here. My theory, not Rockstar's. So, for Kalaga, bring a rifle, bring a dirt bike, and keep an eye on the treeline. Alright, that's the tour! Now let's talk about how this world actually works, starting with getting around. According to Nelson, there's a 3D map, but you won't have to open it much. Hold down on the D -pad and you can set a waypoint right from gameplay. You can switch points of interest on if you want them, but Rockstar's goal is to keep the screen as clean as

10:59possible. For long hauls, there's RideMe, which is basically Uber, and Nelson called it a good way to do fast travel. You can even chat with whoever's riding with you on the way. Public transport is a real option for once. Edge reports that buses and trains run on schedules. One of Rockstar's leads apparently checks the buses arrive on time, and Aaron Garbott mentions spending a whole day just riding the train. Honestly, that sounds like a great way to see the map. Your own car is never far away either. You can call your personal vehicle whenever you like, and the Scooter Bros app will bring it right to you, with the courier riding off on a scooter afterwards. Any weapons you've bought stay

11:35with that car. One limit worth knowing early. You start with room for just three cars. You can buy more garages around the map, but when they're full, something has to be sold before a new car can stay, and a stolen car you haven't stored will be gone the next time you load the game. This next part is the one that'll save you the most frustration. Let's start with money. You've got a bank account, and the cash in your pocket can be lost if you get wasted or busted. Nelson's advice is simple. Put it somewhere safe. Then there's the police. You don't get a wanted level unless someone actually sees you do something, and the stars climb slowly, depending on how bad it was. At two stars, Nelson

12:11says, you can still slip away. Pull off the mask, put the gun away, grab an old car. At three, forget the car. Get off the street and lose them on foot in the alleys. On top of that, there's a system called HEAT. Steal a car and the owner might call it in. From that moment, the cops know your clothes, your face, and the car you're in, but not exactly where you are. So they search an area, and for as long as you stay inside it, the heat stays on you. To shake it, get out of that area, change your clothes, or even take a few off, or roll into a pain spray for a fresh coat of paint. Just don't count on using the same one twice in a row, because there's a cooldown. Pricier cars can come with a

12:49GPS tracker. The WAINK app on your phone tells you how fast you need to drive to lose it, and if you crawl along for too long, the tracker pings your position. A couple of places are off limits for stealing cars. The area around your hideout, and the strip club your friends run. As Nelson put it, it wouldn't be good for business. Through all of this, the game also keeps a criminal profile on you, tracking whether you operate like a professional or like someone violent and dangerous. Now, my favorite thing about this map. Nelson told Famitsu you can scope out gang hideouts, sneak in, and walk out with their cash or their drugs. And the map itself can tell you how much cash and how many drugs

13:27are stashed at each one. The drugs you can then take to a fence. So which gangs? Officially there are two so far. The bikers who run Ambrosia, and PTT Youngins down in Southside Vice City. Trailer 1 also shows a biker crew rolling through a Vice City intersection, and the Keys have their drug runners, Brian included. What we don't have yet is a full gang list, or any actual numbers. This is more than a side activity too. Nelson said that just doing missions won't earn you enough money to keep the story going. Gang stashes, store jobs, stolen cars for a fence named Randy, that's where the money for your next chapter comes from. The last thing to watch is the sky. Hurricanes and tropical

14:06storms are confirmed. Heavy clouds, strong winds, a lot of rain. The weather also varies across the state, so you can be standing in sunshine while a storm hammers the coast in the distance. Puddles stay after the rain, rainbows come out after a shower, and gusts of wind ripple the water and bend the swamp grass. What a hurricane actually does to a mission or a drive, Rockstar hasn't said. Personally, I'm not taking a seaplane out when the sky over the Keys goes black. Ok, as promised, here's my day 1 checklist. Grab a screenshot. 1. Go exploring early, because the map only fills in where you've been. 2. Bank your cash before you do any stupid. 3. Remember where the safe zones are. Your

14:44hideout and your friend's club. 4. Before a job, know where the nearest plane spray and clothing store are. 5. Learn the D -pad waypoint and let RideMe hand on the long ride. 6. You've got only 3 garage spots, so sell before you keep something better. 7. Stay out of the water in grass rivers and never go into Kalaga unarmed. And that's not an idea. Gators down south, bikers in the middle, hunters up north and a map that tells you where the money is hidden. The game's out November 19th. Until then I'm covering every single Rockstar Drops. And once it's out, I'm going to check every single thing from this video myself. If you want to see how much of 8Hubs hop, subscribe. And let me know in the

15:21comments which region you're driving to first. See you in low -night -down!